CEON: Circular Economy Ontology Network
This paper introduces the Circular Economy Ontology Network (CEON), developed within the Onto-DESIDE project to enable semantic interoperability and cross-sectorial data documentation across the construction, electronics, and textile industries, thereby facilitating the transition to a circular economy.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Imagine our current economy is like a giant, one-way conveyor belt. We take raw materials, turn them into products, use them, and then throw them away. This is the "linear economy."
The Circular Economy is the dream of turning that conveyor belt into a giant, endless loop. Instead of throwing things away, we fix them, reuse them, take them apart to make new things, or recycle the materials. But here's the problem: for this loop to work, a shoe manufacturer in one country needs to know exactly what a textile factory in another country is doing with old shoes, and a construction company needs to know if a specific door is safe to reuse.
Right now, these different industries speak different "languages." A construction company might describe a material in a way a recycling plant doesn't understand. This is where CEON comes in.
What is CEON?
Think of CEON (Circular Economy Ontology Network) as a universal translator and a shared rulebook for everyone involved in the life of a product.
In the world of computers and data, an "ontology" is like a dictionary that not only defines words but also explains how those words relate to each other. CEON is a network of these dictionaries designed specifically for the circular economy. It was built by a team of researchers (mostly from Sweden and Belgium) as part of a European project called Onto-DESIDE.
How Does It Work? (The Analogy of the "Product Passport")
Imagine every product (like a pair of shoes, a building, or a smartphone) has a digital passport.
- Without CEON: One person writes the passport in French, another in Japanese, and a third uses a secret code. No one can read the whole story.
- With CEON: Everyone agrees to write the passport using the same set of rules and vocabulary.
CEON provides the specific vocabulary for:
- The Actors: Who is doing what? (The manufacturer, the recycler, the buyer).
- The Resources: What are we moving? (Materials, energy, products).
- The Processes: What is happening? (Repairing, recycling, selling).
- The Value: Why are we doing this? (Is it for profit, sustainability, or safety?).
Real-World Examples from the Paper
The paper doesn't just talk theory; it shows how this works in three specific industries: Construction, Electronics, and Textiles.
The Beginning of Life (Recycling):
- Scenario: A construction company wants to buy floor tiles. They need to know if the tiles are made from "virgin" (new) materials or recycled shoe soles.
- CEON's Role: It allows the construction company to ask a computer, "Show me all floor tiles made from recycled shoe soles and their prices." Because everyone used the same CEON rules, the computer understands that "shoe soles" and "floor tiles" are connected in this specific way.
The Middle of Life (Repair):
- Scenario: A building owner's speaker breaks. They want to send it back to the manufacturer to be fixed.
- CEON's Role: The system can instantly check the speaker's "passport" to see if it's eligible for repair, who made it, and what safety rules apply. It connects the broken speaker to the specific repair service that knows how to fix it.
The End of Life (Reuse or Takedown):
- Scenario: A building is being torn down. The owner has a pile of doors.
- CEON's Role: Instead of just crushing the doors, the system can tell the owner: "These doors can be sold to a new building," or "These can be taken apart to recover the wood." It helps the owner make the smartest choice to keep the materials in the loop.
How Did They Build It?
The team didn't just sit in a room and guess. They used an agile approach (like software developers do), building the dictionary in small chunks, testing it, and getting feedback from experts in construction, electronics, and textiles. They made sure the "dictionary" could handle complex questions, like "Who owns this material right now?" or "What energy was used to make this?"
What Did They Find?
The paper reports that they successfully built this system (version 1.0.0). They tested it by asking it 90 different types of questions (called "Competency Questions").
- The Good News: The system could answer about 41% of the questions perfectly and another 31% partially.
- The "Missing" Part: The remaining questions weren't failures; they were things that are either too vague to define in a computer system yet (like "What is the best way to save energy?") or are specific to just one industry and need their own special add-on dictionaries.
Why Does This Matter?
The paper claims that CEON is the first tool of its kind to try to connect all these different industries under one shared language. It's not a magic wand that fixes the economy overnight, but it's the infrastructure needed to make the circular economy possible. Without a shared language, the "digital and green transition" is stuck because companies can't share the data they need to trust each other.
In short, CEON is the glue that lets a shoe recycler, a building contractor, and an electronics repair shop all read the same story about a product's life, so they can work together to keep resources in use for as long as possible.
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